


Whumptober 2020 26 Concussion

by frankie_mcstein



Series: Whumptober 2020 [26]
Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Aftermath of a fight, Gen, Whumptober 2020, Worried Magnum, concussion side effects, hospital stay, ignoring Medical Advice, poor Higgins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27207973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_mcstein/pseuds/frankie_mcstein
Summary: Whumptober 2020 prompt 26- Concussion"All she knew was that she desperately wanted someone to be there with her, and, for the first time in a very long time, she had that option."
Relationships: Juliet Higgins & Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV
Series: Whumptober 2020 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947172
Comments: 15
Kudos: 45





	Whumptober 2020 26 Concussion

**Author's Note:**

> Some whumped Higgins, some concerned Magnum, what else can you want?

Higgins wanted nothing more than to sit very, very still in a very very dark room and never move again. As usual, a simple little case had ballooned beyond anyone’s control. Neither she nor Magnum had eaten or slept properly in over a week, and now they were both covered in bruises too. Of course, she was the only one of the pair who was also sporting one heck of a concussion. The EMT had been concerned, had wanted her to go to hospital but she had refused, shying away from a night of being poked and prodded while dealing with the insomnia that inevitably accompanied a hospital stay.

Magnum had been talking with Katsumoto while the EMT had been tormenting Higgins with a tiny penlight, so he’d missed the conversation. He had grinned when she had limped over to join him, assuming that she, like him, had gotten off with a week's worth of aches and pains.

“How about a drink?” he’d asked, already signalling to take the turn that would take them to La Mariana. 

Higgins could have groaned, already feeling dizzy and worryingly weak and a little sick. But she hadn’t wanted anyone making a fuss over her, hated being the centre of attention and being made to feel like she was incapable of looking after herself. So she’d forced a smile onto her face, wincing at the way it had made her cheek feel like it was broken rather than just bruised, and said she’d love a drink.

She’d lasted less than an hour before being forced to leave, chased away by the music and the lights and the smell of the food and the way her head had been throbbing in time with her increasingly rapid heartbeat. Magnum had given her a loaded sort of look, as if he was partly confused by her leaving and partly sure that he knew exactly what was going on.

“I’ll call an Uber” she’d managed, through partly-gritted teeth. “No need for you to leave on my account.”

“Call me if you need anything,” he’d shouted after her, the offer echoed by both Rick and T.C. 

Clearly, she hadn’t been quite as successful at hiding her suffering as she’d hoped, but she hadn’t been able to find it within herself to care; she’d already been anticipating the sheer hellish misery of a car ride with her stomach churning. The idea of street lights flashing past the windows and traffic lights glaring in through the windscreen was enough to bring tears to her eyes, and she was sure was going to be sick before she’d even made it halfway home.

Sure enough, she’d been forced to ask the driver to pull over twice. Both times, she had managed to regain control of her stomach, and both times had been forced to use energy she simply didn’t have assuring her driver that no, she wasn’t drunk and hadn’t been taking drugs. Finally, after the fifth sidelong glance, she had snapped that she had been pushed down a flight of stairs and she was just trying to get safe.

It was pretty obvious from the look on the woman’s face that she’d thought Higgins meant she’d been in a fight with her boyfriend. Higgins had instantly felt terrible for making her think such an awful thing, but the full story of the fight she’d been involved in was too long and complex for her to have been able to even think about it. And it was partly true, at least some of her bruises were due to the flight of stairs she’d been thrown down by her two, very male, opponents. Despite the nagging sense of guilt it had left her with, her ill-thought-out statement had the desired effect, and the driver stayed quiet for the rest of the ride.

Then all she’d had to do was drag herself, very slowly, through the main house and up the impossibly long staircase and along the hall… nope. Her brain had short-circuited at the list of obstacles her body still had to face, and she had ended up in the living room, where she still was. Slumped on the couch, the very picture of half-conscious misery, Juliet Higgins tried to will the room to quit tipping around her every time she took a breath in.

Her stomach was churning, her head pounding, blood roaring in her ears. The only good thing was that she couldn’t hear her own pathetic whimpers over the sound of her own heart as it strained against the laboured way she was breathing. She couldn’t even hear Zeus and Apollo as they whined quietly to themselves, scared by all the wrongness they could sense.

She winced as a bolt of lightning shot across both her eyes, squeezing them closed as tightly as she could, but that only made the pain in the back of her head feel worse. Her hand moved to her pocket without her even thinking about it. She had no idea how long she had been sitting there, trying not to cry, trying not to throw up, trying not to black out. All she knew was that she desperately wanted someone to be there with her, and, for the first time in a very long time, she had that option.

It took a while to remember how to move her fingers the way she needed to, longer again to get the microphone to pick up her weakly muttered voice command. But finally, she was holding her cell and it gave a cheery beep to tell her it was dialling. The noise nearly pushed her over the edge, the pain that was battering against her skull spiking to a level she hadn’t realised she could feel without losing consciousness. She hardly breathed while she waited for the call to connect.

...

Magnum was on his way to bed when he heard his cell buzz. He paused midstep, tempted to ignore it. He’d only had the one beer, but he was aching from the fight, exhausted from the week of full-on tension he had just lived through, and really just wanted his bed. But, his sense of duty told him it might be important. So he sighed and took the two steps back to the table, only to see the lads snarling at him from the screen.

“Hey, Higgy, what’s up?”

_ “Thomas?”  _

He froze, his entire body instantly tense and panic welling up in his chest; he had never heard Higgins sound so weak and scared. Her voice was more like a heavy sigh, and he strained to catch every noise coming over the line, immediately worrying that something was wrong, that she was being attacked or held hostage. 

“Juliet?” He kept his voice quiet and calm even as his heart was starting to race.

_ “Help.” _

It was practically a sob, and Magnum took off at a dead run. He didn’t care that he was shirtless, barefoot, that he dropped his cell as he sprinted toward the door. All he knew was that he needed to get to Juliet, to find out what was wrong, to protect her from it, fix it. He tore across the grass, taking the shortest route to the front door, remembering the study had been dark when he’d gotten home.

He found the lights on downstairs and headed to the living room rather than going to the stairs, hoping it was Higgins who had left the lights on but ready to fight if he found someone had broken in. Instead of masked burglars, he burst in through the doorway to see Higgins on the couch, deathly pale, trembling slightly, cell still gripped in her hand.

“Juliet?” Barely a whisper but it was enough to make her whimper. He crossed to the couch, not even seeing the two dogs watching him anxiously, and put a hand on her face, keeping the touch as light as he could.

“Hurts,” she managed to choke out, a tear sliding down her cheek and terrifying him.

He tugged her cell from her hand, concern growing when she didn’t even try to open her eyes to see what was going on. He ended the call to his own cell and dialed quickly, not taking his eyes off his partner.

“It’s okay, girl, I’m here. It’s gonna be all right.” And then the operator was asking him for details of his emergency and he was demanding an ambulance and trying to explain about the fight and how he didn’t know what injuries she had walked away with because she hadn’t told him.

He sat with her until the ambulance arrived, keeping his hand on her face so she would know she wasn't alone. When the EMTs called out that the door was open, he ran to meet them, telling about the extreme pain she was in. He stood and watched while they whispered questions to her, gently poked at her head, and it hit him like a ton of bricks; she had a concussion.

He was allowed to ride in the ambulance after he'd grabbed a shirt and some shoes and held her hand the entire time. When she arched desperately off the stretcher and heaved violently, he grabbed her hair with his free hand, not even caring that his shoes now had bile over the toes. All he cared about was the way she nearly passed out before they got her lying back down again, the way the tremors he'd noticed earlier were getting more pronounced.

When Rick asked him about it, he would shrug it off. He just didn't want to lose his business partner after going through so much trouble to get her to agree to work with him. He hadn't been at all worried about her. And when T.C. gently asked Higgins if she was feeling less scared now that she knew what was going on, she would roll her eyes as much as her still aching head would allow and scoff at the idea that she had been at all concerned. She certainly hadn't 'clung' to Magnum, thank you very much.

None of their friends were fooled, of course, but they let it slide, just glad that the talk of intracranial bleeding and surgery had turned out to be nothing more than speculation. There was also talk of no one being allowed to see EMTs on their own anymore, but that was more a series of frustrated whispers than a serious suggestion. At least, that's what they told each other.

**Author's Note:**

> These seem to be getting shorter. That's because I'm down to wire and basically writing them an hour or two before posting lol.


End file.
